Dear Readers: I’m A Bad Feminist

Published at Women in Higher Education on January 6, 2015.

Like Gay, my relationship with the label “feminist” has been tumultuous at best. I embraced “feminist” as a seventh-grader to proclaim my support of women’s equality. This seemed like an easy choice because who wouldn’t want women to be equal to men? As a twelve-year-old, I wanted to counter my biological father’s use of Rush Limbaugh’s “feminazi” to deride feminists and women more generally. This was an act of protest and survival.